Welcome to the home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys)! Here you’ll find over 5,000 posts and formulas written over the past 16 years for everything from lotions, creams, and body butters to hair care products to fancy facial products filled with actives and cosmeceuticals! Enjoy the site without distractions – no ads, pop ups, sponsored posts, affiliate links, “one weird tricks” – all supported by readers like you.
What are micelles? They are defined as “an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid”. So what’s a colloid? It is a type of mixture in which one substance is evenly dispersed throughout another. There’s generally two phases – the dispersed or internal phase and the continuous phase. In the case of oil-in-water...
I wanted to write a few posts about creating cleansers for the different skin types, then I realized that I hadn’t done posts on surfactants for a while. I’ve got some basic stuff from last year, but I thought a more in depth series of posts on the various surfactants we use in our creations...
I know the kids who come to my craft groups think I’m being no-fun Susan when I suggest trying a drop of colour in the surfactant-y mixes and adding it drop by drop if you want a more vivid colour…but here’s the result. Take a look at this body wash. I admit it, I went...
In this post, Naomi writes…If I don’t have Crothix, could I substitute stearic acid? or Cetyl Alcohol? or another thickener – like Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose? So, you add in Crothix for thickening purposes? What do you suggest as possible substitutes?No, you can’t use stearic acid or cetyl alcohol. They will eventually separate out and leave a...
I do love body wash, and I know I’ve already tweaked this recipe a thousand times, but let’s take a look at including white willow bark extract in our body wash! Why would we want to use it here? It works well for oily skin, acne prone skin, and aging skin to reveal new and...